Muhammad Idrees Ahmad

The Israeli Occupation Forces have murdered 19 sleeping Palestinians including nine children and four women and left 40 wounded when they hit a row of houses in the northern Gaza town of Beit Hanoun this morning. The massacre brings the number of Palestinians killed since November 1 to at least 73  including 16 children and six women and 2 Red Crescent medics, and the number of injured to over 300 . The number killed since the beginning of the latest Gaza assault in June 26 stands at 360.

Most of the victims belonged to the Athamna family who lived in several adjacent homes. Majid Athamna, 55, said he was sleeping when the first shell landed. “Some people were killed and injured. We went downstairs and the second shell hit while we were taking out the bodies. Then more shells came. I saw bodies cut into pieces. There were children and women. God knows why they hit this house.”

At Kamel Adwan hospital in nearby Beit Lahiya, Yazan Athamna, 15, was being treated for shrapnel injuries to his stomach and legs. He said that his mother and two grandmothers were killed as they slept. “I got out of the house and was running in the street. Then people came to help and the shelling started again,” he said.

Muhammed Odwan, 21, was lying on his stomach with shrapnel injuries to his back. “I was in the house sleeping. The shelling started and I got out of my house. All my neighbours were screaming for help and then it started it again as people gathered. My father was killed in the alleyway where we stood. Why did they do this? They want to destroy our houses and force us into exile.”(Guardian)

”I saw people coming out of the house, bleeding and screaming. I carried a girl covered with blood,” he said. ”Inside the houses, we evacuated dismembered bodies … Everything was disgusting. this is the worst, bloody scene I have ever scene.”(NYT)

Lest you believe that the Israeli military has no concern for the law,  it announced it was ”still investigating the incident”.

Of course we will discover soon that the families blew themselves up to tarnish the good image of Israel’s humane army. Soon we will have western liberals pontificating on the need to curb hatred “on both sides”.

Ha’aretz brings further confirmation of Israeli military’s child-killing credentials:

A third of unarmed Palestinians killed during IDF operations in the Gaza Strip since the abduction of Gilad Shalit have been minors, according to a new report prepared by Physicians for Human Rights, to be published Wednesday.

Between June 27 and October 28, 247 Palestinians, including 155 civilians (63 percent) were killed by the IDF. Among the civilians killed, 57 were minors. This figure does not include minors who were armed.

The report also claims that of the 996 Palestinians injured during the past four months, about a third, 337, are children.